Richard Crowley
1
COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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Virtually all microphones are monaural. Only some very special microphones are STEREO and they are prominently advertised as such.
Your microphones are most certainly monaural. And for picking up most sounds in video, conventional monaural microphones are used 99.997% of the time. Certainly, for picking up dialog, monaural microphones are used 100% of the time. There is absolutely NO REASON in the universe to record a single person speaking in “STEREO”. (Unless it is a weasly politician speaking different things out of both sides of their mouth!) 🙂
Perhaps you are confusing what happens while you are shooting video (and recording audio) vs. what happens in POST-production editing where you decide which microphone goes where in the stereo panorama. When we are shooting, we record each separate microphone on a separate channel. It is VERY common when using two mics (as you are describing) to record one of the microphones on the Left channel of the stereo, and the other microphone on the Right channel.
Then, you have the maximum flexibility of handling each microphone independently for all the usual audio editing functions (level mixing, panning Left<–>Right, equalization, special effects, etc. etc. etc.)
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But WHY do you want a STEREO file from a MONAURAL source? The reason no recorder will do that is because nobody needs such a feature. Why do YOU need that feature?
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“The file it makes is 2-channel. Mic 1 on the Left, Mic 2 on the Right.”
Yes, that is exactly how ever stereo audio recorder on the planet works. It sounds like it is working perfectly.“If it were what I want, it’d be a 4-channel audio file, the first two comprising channel 1, the last two comprising channel 2.”
No recorder on the planet will do that because nobody has ever established WHY anyone would need to do such a thing. Now, if you were talking about FOUR microphones on four channels, that is a normal thing. But TWO microphones redundantly recorded to FOUR channels just seems bizarre. Can you explain why you think you want to do this?
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Are you sure you have it set up properly? I agree it seems preposterous that it wouldn’t perform such a very basic function.
Have you studied the manual and taken an hour or two to play with all the menu settings, etc. etc,
You have not revealed HOW you tested this and arrived at your conclusion, so it seems possible that your test method may be questionable.
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How about a hyper-cardioid on an adjustable boom.
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NO you cannot assume anything. As you have correctly noted, the combination of several different wiring standards, along with the nearly useless marketing prose of the people selling cables/adapters makes this problem even greater than it ever was before.
OTOH, I noted, a few days ago when answering a similar question on another forum, that Hosa is now publishing the actual wiring diagrams for their adapters. That is enormously helpful when trying to determine whether a particular product will work for a particular situation.
For example: https://hosatech.com/product/xvm-100f/
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The radio bands are governed by the Federal Communication Commission uniformly across all of the US territory including all 50 states. The issue is NOT one state vs. another, but what spectrum users have been licensed in each city or local area.
As Mr. Reynolds said, it has become a quite dynamic problem that is not very predictable by old methods. The best way is to make a scan of the band in “real-time” and select a free channel. Be glad you aren’t in New York City or some other “RF Hell”.
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Yes, omnidirectional. But that DOES NOT mean that you can use a body mic for more than one person! The reason is not DIRECTIONALITY, but PROXIMITY. By definition, a body mic is very close to the subject, and quite FAR away from anyone else. Way too far away to expect any kind of quality audio pickup.
If you expect more than a casual 1-2 word interjection from someone, you MUST cover them properly with a microphone. That means their own body mic, or a mic held up to their mouth (or a mic on a boom).
Remember that normal working distance for a boom mic is 2ft (60cm) By the time you get out to 3ft (1m) you are getting marginal levels and poor rejection of ambient noise. Especially in noisy kitchens or restaurant dining rooms, this just doesn’t seem practical, especially if you don’t have a dedicated audio person on your crew.
And a “shotgun” microphone can be used effectively only in the absence of nearby reflections, for practical purposes that means outdoors. For use indoors where there are reflections from ceiling, walls, etc. the microphone of choice is a hyper-cardioid.
And a microphone mounted ON the camera will give you nothing useful except environmental sound effects which would likely be useful later in editing. But it will NEVER give you useful dialog recording unless you have the camera literally in the subject’s face.
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Mounting ANY microphone on a camera is a terrible idea. It is almost always too far away from the subject and way too close to the camera and the camera operator.
You did not state what the sound source was? (someone speaking?)
We are assuming that you mean that the mic was 1m away from the sound source.
1m working distance is QUITE FAR away, probably farther than most professionals would be comfortable with.
A “shotgun mic” is NOT a “zoom lens” for audio. The only thing the shotgun mic can do is reduce the off-axis noise better than your average mic. It does NOTHING to “amplify” the audio from too far away. Nobody yet has found a way to violate the inverse-square law of physics, and you have demonstrated that the law is still in effect.
It is not clear why you need a “matching transformer” to connect a microphone to your DSLR. Kopul fails to reveal what they mean by “low impedance” or “high impedance”. There are probably NO DSLRs with “high impedance” inputs. Most people use a simple adapter cable (no transformer required).
It is not at all clear that anything is wrong with your microphone. From what we have seen so far, it seems likely that you simply have unrealistic expectations of using a “shotgun mic” in ways it cannot perform.
If you had any other mics that you could compare to, it would be beneficial for your process of “differential diagnosis” to identify the problem.
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It seems unlikely that they are wielding boom microphones in such close quarters as restaurant kitchens (much less food carts, etc.) The most likely solution is a wireless body kit for the “host”. With either a clip-on microphone, or a “headset” mic. Although a headset type microphone might get in the way of eating and drinking on-camera.
And for interviewing “guests”, it depends on whether you have the luxury of doing a full set-up. Coming in ahead of the shoot and setting up lights, etc. If you have the luxury of pre-production preparation, then you can put a wireless body mic on the guest also.
But if you are doing “run-n-gun” guerrilla production, then a hand-held microphone is often used with the host holding the mic up to the the guest’s mouth. Of course, the host has his own mic so he doesn’t have to go back-and-forth with the microphone. This is the technique used on TV game shows, news coverage, etc. since perhaps before you were born.